At the End of the Corridor
by Carnation Cascade
Summary: 'It's funny when you think about how much a conversation without speech can change two individual's lives.' In which Naruto and Sakura converse via means of nothing but a board and a bunch of post-its. AU.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or its characters.**

**A/N:  
I honestly don't know what happened here. This fic was originally something a little different, and it was also the first fic that I had wanted to write for Naruto. Let's just say it didn't happen back then, but I revisited it and...well, here it is! :)  
I hope to be able to continue this fic :)  
**

**Leave a review if you'd like, and I hope you enjoy this :)  
**

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_At the End of the Corridor_

Chapter 1: The Board At the End of the Corridor

"I'm not a child anymore, damn it!"

Several heads turned in Sakura's direction as she slammed the house door shut, oblivious to the accusatory stares she was receiving. With her face reflecting murder, the pink-haired teen took long and purposeful strides towards her high school, Konoha Academy.

Sakura had never been the shy, bashful kind of person who'd keep all her raging feelings and thoughts to herself, very much unlike her friend, Hinata. In actuality, the violent girl was quite the opposite of 'shy'.

_In actuality, _describing the child as merely 'violent' _had_ to be the understatement of the century.

_Stupid Mom… Always bossing me around like a kid! For goodness' sake, I'm not five! I'm a sixteen-year-old perfectly capable of looking after myself! All she does is boss me around all day and acts like some big shot, telling me to do my work, finish my work, clean up my room, stop playing video games… What is her problem! _

…_At least I get to go to school. It'll provide a brief respite from my source of stress at home…_

The fuming teen pondered over the irony of how school could be a respite while being another source of stress for her, when she halted before the school gates. As per normal, they were already locked, serving as a barrier between her and the school.

She was late. Again.

_Heh. What's new?_

Of course, such obstacles hardly proved to be much for someone as feisty and athletically-talented as her.

With alarming speed, Sakura clambered up the metal gates, swung a leg over the top and leapt off it. Her two feet hit the ground at the same time, practically flaunting her agility.

Sakura was already making a beeline for her classroom when the guards turned to check the school gates.

They swore they had seen someone enter.

The classroom door slid open with a loud bang.

The students had scarcely any reaction; this was a scene they'd seen a million times over, it was like a broken video player that repeated the scene over as many times as possible.

"Well if it isn't _Forehead._"

Snickers rang out throughout the classroom and Sakura walked in calmly, with utter disregard for their harsh mockery. She was used to it, anyhow.

They didn't know how it felt to be her.

Sakura had just rested herself on the chair in some corner of the classroom where she could be invisible when their teacher walked in.

Kakashi, looking somewhat like a junkie today what with his tired expression and 70% of his face covered, ambled into the classroom like he was _totally_ on time.

The clock on the wall read 8.23 am. _Totally. _

_Their homeroom teacher was late by an entire hour. _As usual.

"Yo, class." The silver-haired man greeted without so much as even bothering to glance at the class. His eyes were riveted to some page of whatever book it was that he was holding in his hand. Eye-smiling, he continued heartily with a "Sorry about that, I got lost on the road of life again."

The students of class 2-7 ceased their chatter and decided to focus on what their teacher had to say. Kakashi usually didn't turn up for homeroom periods at all, unless he _had_ to convey some important message from the principal, Tsunade, or something.

"This isn't actually very important," he began in a completely contradictory way, "but Principal Tsunade just wanted to let y'all know that there's some board or another somewhere at the end of the corridor." Kakashi paused to point in the direction that was _opposite_ of the end of the corridor. "So feel free to put messages there or something."

And with that, he strolled out of the classroom without waiting for any sign of response from the class.

Well, truth be told, Kakashi knew he wasn't going to get any reaction. These were sixteen-year-olds he was talking about, and what were the chances of teenagers even showing the slightest bit of interest in something as terribly mundane as some random board in the school's most inconspicuous place?

_Zilch_, Kakashi told himself as the bell rang for Chemistry lessons.

_Zilch_, Sakura told herself as the bell rang for Chemistry lessons. There was a zilch chance that she _wasn't_ going to mess around with that precious—okay fine, worthless—board when the golden opportunity had presented itself to her on a silver platter.

_It's not like anyone is going to even care about this board, might as well entertain myself with it._

As much as Sakura wanted to pay attention in class, her mind was kind of busy doing little prances in imagineville and not focusing on whatever it was the teacher was rambling on and on about.

…_Maybe prank someone? Yes! Now that sounds like a g—_

"Sakura!"

She blinked once from her tiny corner at the back of the classroom and raised her hand. "Yes, teacher?"

"Your turn to answer the question." The Chemistry teacher tapped the whiteboard, which displayed a mind-numbingly difficult chemical equation. Sakura _swore_ she could see the evil gleam in his eyes.

Sakura's eyes flitted to the board. The cogwheels in her brain turned rapidly, churning out the answer she required in mere seconds.

"Potassium," she answered confidently. Her eyes were trained on the teacher, as though challenging him to correct her answer.

Caught off guard entirely, the teacher checked the notes in his hands before stuttering out a surprised "C-correct."

Sakura rolled her eyes and sat herself down, drifting off to imagineville again. Teachers should really learn that Sakura couldn't be picked on when it came to answering questions—regardless of difficulty. The girl was, despite her rebellious attitude, quite the conscientious and studious child. She always read up on topics before her classes.

Tucking strands of her hair behind her ear, the girl fished out a new pack of post-its—pink, her favourite colour—from her bag and ripped one off to start writing.

Should she just write something to see if anyone would respond? Sakura decided this was the best course of action to take. If nobody was going to respond in the first place, then might as well not do anything.

So she lifted her black pen and scribbled down the first thought that came to her mind.

"_I need help." _

Sakura felt that the fact that _this_ was the first thing that came to her mind reflected just how well her mental well-being was.

_Well, who cares? It's all in the name of fun anyway._

And for the rest of lesson time, all she did was fantasize about her soon-to-be 'adventure' to the end of the corridor.

* * *

Once lessons were done for the day, Sakura sped off to her destination, making sure that she went by unseen by anyone else.

The board was everything Sakura had expected—plain, ugly and small.

So with flourish she whipped out her post-it and stuck it onto the board, the strong pink colour a stark contrast against the dull grey board.

And thus, Sakura spent the next week waiting for a reply.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or its characters.**

**A/N: A somewhat timely update here! Thank you to everyone who took the time to review, and to those who took interest in this and followed and favorited it! It really means a lot to me :')**

**I apologize if things are progressing kind of slowly, but I felt it necessary to address Sakura's state of mind of sorts. So I hope you don't get bored reading this chapter :(**

**Review if you'd like to, and enjoy!**

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_At the End of the Corridor_

Chapter 2

Disappointment wasn't quite what Sakura was feeling when an entire week went by and her pink note still sat on the board, fluttering in the wind.

She should've seen it coming to begin with, and she had. So no surprise there.

…Or at least, that was Sakura's reasoning in trying to comfort herself.

She'd been really looking forward to... messing around, but she didn't have that chance anymore.

"…Sakura, you okay?"

The pink-haired adolescent snapped out of her dazed state. She realised that her two friends—two out of the only three friends she had, in fact—were staring at her with concern. Okay, well, Sasuke's face conveyed more annoyance than concern.

"Sakura-chan, were you listening to what we were saying?" Uzumaki Naruto asked. The orange-loving blonde was a raucous child and the class clown. That made him the fun and cheerful friend that Sakura needed to brighten up her days.

Uchiha Sasuke rolled his eyes. "Don't ask the obvious, dobe. Of course she wasn't." Sasuke was one of the most obnoxious people she had met in her life, what with his stuck-up attitude and completely inflated ego. It didn't help that he was born into the Uchiha family, one of the most powerful and influential families in the world. Despite that, Sakura knew he could be a reliable person and was most definitely trustworthy.

…In short, the three of them were social outcasts (if you ignore Sasuke's squealing fangirls) who got along well together.

"Sorry, I kind'a spaced out," Sakura answered sheepishly, feeling her already-insignificant self fade further into the noisy background that was the cafeteria.

"Hn."

Naruto laughed heartily and continued, "That's okay, Sakura-chan! We were just talking about the board at the end of the corridor."

"Oh!" Sakura feigned total interest in the subject matter because she was too caught up thinking about her lonely note.

Then Sakura's breath got caught in her throat when realization struck.

"O…Oh yeah? What about it?"

In a few mere seconds, she felt her pulse speed up by at least fourfold which meant she was supposed to be dead but she wasn't.

If her friends found out about her little secret, her entire social life would be over. (_Hah, what social life?_)

"Just said how lame and stupid it was. And what on earth is Principal Tsunade thinking?" Sasuke hissed in his trademark pissed-off voice.

"Oh, and I saw a pink note there!" Naruto added excitedly.

His raven-haired friend scowled. "Huh, losers." He commented off-handedly.

Sakura choked on her fruit punch. That was a pretty harsh blow. Gee, Sasuke could be a completely insensitive and insulting pers—

She set her drink down, shaking her head slightly to clear her head. Why would she think that way? This was just a game, something to relieve her of her stress by messing with people… It wasn't like she was supposed to be taking it for real or anything.

A sour feeling of sorts built up in the back of her mouth as soon as these thoughts came to mind.

_Don't go off playing for real, Sakura_.

…Then why exactly was she feeling so perturbed by it?

* * *

Mid-years were approaching at such a rapidly suffocating pace that Sakura found it increasingly harder to _not_ pay attention in class, even though it was Biology lesson, and to make matters worse, just after break time.

Orochimaru, Head of Biology in their school and also incidentally their Biology teacher, now roamed the classroom like a slippery snake in search of his victims. His pale skin and long hair—and was that a tint of purple eye shadow Sakura sighted?—made him look the part of a rockstar.

That is, if rockstars droned on and on about useless stuff like beta cells in the islands of Langerhans or whatever it was.

"That's '_islets_ of Langerhansss', Haruno."

Sakura was careful not to leap out of her seat like the frightened bunny she was around Orochimaru. It would seem that on top of being a snake-like creature, he was also telepathic. Just her luck.

She allowed just her eye to twitch almost unnoticeably in response, hurriedly taking down the correct version of the term before she started writing about islands in her mid-year papers.

From the corner of her eye Sakura managed to catch a glimpse of Orochimaru breathing down Sasuke's neck like the pedophile he was. She couldn't help but grin impishly when Sasuke appeared visibly disturbed by the man's somewhat lecherous advances. As much as Sasuke tried to maintain his cool exterior, Sakura knew he was squirming on the inside.

She permitted her mind to wander off and think about other frustrating stuff, tuning out on Orochimaru's hissing. Other frustrating stuff like Haruno Mebuki, her future career, her male love interest, which shade of pink she preferred, sticking notes on a board and no-one replying to it…

_Well_ crap.

It made Sakura quite irate to realise she had just reminded herself of what she had been so desperately trying to forget, but it wasn't like she had a need to forget it or anything because it wasn't important at all and therefore reminding herself of it shouldn't be an issue at all and neither should any distraction be necessary.

Sakura found herself grimacing while she tried to sort out the paradoxical situation of sorts, which was, by right, not supposed to be paradoxical based on the situation itself, hence contradicting itself even further and becoming a greater paradox.

Ah, the mysteries of paradoxes.

"Are you having a headache, Sakura-chan?" Her best friend rushed to her side immediately after Biology was over, having noticed her scrunched-up features during the lesson.

Sakura ran her fingers through her unruly hair, "Not really. I'm just utterly discombobulated by myself."

"Uh." Naruto looked unsure, probably because he couldn't comprehend what his friend was saying. "Sure, Sakura-chan!" He flashed her one of his goofy grins.

She cracked a smile, the tension that had been built up within her now melting away like snow having their first taste of summer.

"I'll just grab my stuff and we can head over to Math," Sakura said, promptly leaping over a table that was in her way to get to the lockers outside class.

The blond only gave her a sheepish smile. "Uh, sorry Sakura-chan, I've got… uh… something to do first…"

He started to back away from a now surprised Sakura.

"…See you in Math!"

And with that, he sped off down the main hall's corridor.

The sixteen-year-old girl sighed heavily and slammed her locker shut.

Her social life was falling apart _way_ too soon.

* * *

Before long dusk had approached and the school was bathed in a orange-red hue.

Sakura woke with a start. She blinked her bleary eyes, turning to look at her surroundings.

It was their homeroom. Nothing wrong there. She'd just fallen asleep while doing her Biology homework—again.

Sakura sighed for not the first time that day, and buried her face in her hands. She wanted to go home too, but not with Haruno Mebuki around. She'd probably get impaled by lots of false accusations and nagging and whatnot before she even made it halfway up the stairs.

Carrying the same heavy feeling she harbored everyday when she had to go home, Sakura swept her belongings into her bag with one swift movement.

As she trudged out of the classroom, she willed herself to wander. It didn't matter where her feet brought her, as long as she could spend more time here, instead of at home.

Yet her feet conveyed her unconscious emotions, the hope she kept within her heart from the very beginning, and Sakura realised she'd reached a wall; a dead end.

Scowling, Sakura turned to leave, but her heart skipped a beat the second she looked up.

She was standing before the board at the end of the corridor.

…More importantly, there was an orange note sitting there in place of her pink one.

"I'll be your listening ear."

Just maybe, things were starting to look up for her.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or its characters.**

**A/N: My apologies! It took me quite a while to flesh out his chapter, and it's pretty rushed, but I hope it'll still be enjoyable or readable, at least :P**

**Also, I have nothing against corncobs.**

**Review if you'd like to, and enjoy :)**

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At the End of the Corridor

_Chapter 3_

It had already started before Sakura was halfway up the stairs.

"SAKURA! WHAT HAPPENED TO THAT MATH TEST FROM YESTERDAY?!"

Sakura felt her fists clench instinctively_. Count!_ She urged herself.

One…

She took two steps a time, the sound of her stomps resounding throughout the house.

"Haruno Sakura! Don't tell me you failed again!"

Two… Three…

_There was no 'again' to begin with!_

Sakura felt her eyebrows knitting together gradually and her lips pressing against each other into a very, very thin line, with the sole purpose of holding back the torrent of retorts that now threatened to overflow.

"Why can't you do anything properly! Let me tell you, you've been nothing but a lazy slob since the beginning of the year!"

Four… Five…

_And you've been nothing but a waste of space. _

"…look at Hinata! Her grades are far better than yours! And that's because she puts in effort! Don't complain about your lack of sleep when she's been sleeping at 3 a.m. everyday! It's that lazy attitude of yours…"

Sakura reached the top of the staircase before she knew it. The bold child tuned out on her mother's nagging and made a dash for her room, the expression on her face screaming "Salvation!"

To heck with her mom—it was time to get down to writing business.

After an hour or so, the only child of the Haruno household was completely, utterly convinced that she had as much talent in writing as a corncob. She used to believe she had had as much talent in writing as a naruto (the fishcake with the spiral pattern found in ramen, not the friend), but now she had been reduced to a corncob.

A mere _corncob_.

(And how the hell was that supposed to make sense? Sakura never made any sense when it came to writing.)

Papers, crushed mercilessly into tattered, deformed balls, lay strewn all over the room, ranging from usefulness levels of 'Nope' to 'Time to try defying gravity' (aka take a flying leap off a cliff).

Sakura had tried, oh how she had tried, to unsuccessfully write a reply note. Her vocabulary was about as wide as two inches, and she was probably trying too hard—way too hard to come across as the nice, demure-sounding kid she had sounded like based on the first note.

A groan escaping her lips, Sakura threw her pen and stack of papers down, allowing the latter to scatter like fallen flower petals in the spring breeze.

Sakura cringed at the thought. Flower petals? Spring breeze? Gee, it seemed that all that note-writing had served to eliminate about 90% of her brain cells.

She collapsed onto the floor in a mix of lethargy and confusion. _What to write what to write what to write—_her fingertips brushed against one of the balled-up papers of uselessness. Out of pure boredom, she unfurled the tattered thing and read it, because she honestly couldn't remember what she had written (why would she want to, anyway).

"_I know this sounds clichéd, but I'm experiencing so much hardship now. Sometimes I just feel on the verge of a horrible meltdown and—"_

There was the sharp sound of paper being shredded.

Yep, she would try defying gravity anytime sooner than _this._

Maybe it was better to write something as herself… it wasn't like the other person knew her identity… hopefully…

After a bit of stretching, Sakura leapt to her feet and sat herself down at her study desk. With much more confidence, she whipped out her pen once more and scribbled away:

"_I've just traversed the depths of hell—and guess what, I made it back alive. Honestly, my mom needs a lifetime supply of duct-tape, for her mouth, that is. She wouldn't stop nagging at me…"_

Was she coming across as too rebellious?

Was she being too direct?

Was she writing a bit too much?

Sakura couldn't care less.

She hadn't felt this free in ages, she hadn't allowed her thoughts to flow out neatly onto a page (or a post-it, whatever) for the last millennium or something.

She finished the message full of satisfaction, and was already fantasizing thinking about how she would stick the lovely post-it onto the board the following day.

_Indeed, such were the literacy skills of a corncob._

Sakura's eyebrow twitched unnervingly.

The auditorium was stuffy and suffocating to some degree, what with the entire of Sakura's cohort packed in it.

Sakura felt her eyelids droop while Kakashi, who stood at the podium on stage, droned on and on about some stuff that she seriously couldn't get into her head.

Fiddling with the pink post-it in her pocket, she willed her eyes to open and stay that way. The ramification of snoozing in a lecture was detention, and Sakura didn't need that tainting her record.

All she wanted to do was escape this oven and get her note on the board. Was that really so hard?

With a heavy sigh, Sakura leaned back into her seat and ran the words through her mind.

"_I've just traversed the depths of hell—and guess what, I made it back alive. Honestly, my mom needs a lifetime supply of duct-tape, for her mouth, that is. She wouldn't stop nagging at me…"_

…And then it occurred to her that she was actually pouring her true emotions into the whole messaging thing; wasn't it supposed to be a prank?

Suddenly flustered at this thought, Sakura snatched her bag from under her seat and began rummaging for a new post-it so she could re-write everything or many just a correction tape so maybe she could just white-out everything—

Uchiha Sasuke glared at his pink-haired friend next to him. Was she a mental retard or something? Did she not know that she was creating quite the ruckus? Sasuke watched on in irritation as more and more students started staring at Sakura. Which was pretty much in his general direction as well.

Sure, Sasuke loved to be the center of attention, but not like this.

Not. Like. This.

"Stop that, you blithering idiot," the raven-haired teen hissed, because that was the only thing he could do when he tried to whisper.

Sakura paused her frantic searching and looked up. "Who, me?"

"No, Naruto." Sasuke deadpanned. Naruto from across the aisle stared at them quizzically.

"Hah." Sakura realized how much of a ruckus she was creating and quickly sat up straight in her seat, smoothing out the tangles in her hair out of habit.

Sasuke continued to make a typical insulting remark about how she was as dense as a corncob and Sakura countered with a quick "I won't be having corncobs for dinner tonight, then", which left Sasuke utterly stunned because that didn't make sense at all, and went on to speak his mind about how he felt about that statement in the most concise manner possible which was a "Tch", then Sakura got quite agitated at this and—

"Having quite the heated discussion, aren't you?"

The two adolescents froze.

Sakura, who was back-facing the owner of the voice, mouthed a swear word to Sasuke, who promptly averted his gaze, eyes narrowing in annoyance. Of all the teachers who could've caught them talking, it just had to be _him_.

The one and only Orochimaru.

Sakura unfroze herself and turned to face said person (or snake?).

"Uh, no, Orochimaru-sensei." Insert fake cheerful face here.

"Sssure, care to explain why you wouldn't be?" Orochimaru's tongue flicked about in a manner that wanted to make Sakura barf.

Instead she swallowed hard and came up with a wonderful excuse fit for a Biology teacher.

"My enzymes would denature?"

On her way to the detention room after school, Sakura made sure she dropped by the message board to fix on her post-it. There hadn't been time to change it, but Sakura had come to realise that maybe she _didn't_ want to change it.

_It's not like anyone would know it's me._

A small voice at the back of her head said "Excuses, excuses", but Sakura didn't give two cents worth about its existence.

… Sometimes she truly felt like it was these post-its that kept her going at all.


End file.
